Category: Solarography

Earlier this year, there was a cool article on LifeHacker about taking ultra-long exposures using a pinhole camera to capture the sun’s path through the sky. A few days later I emailed Tarja Trygg of the Solargraphy site about trying some exposures from my home. He graciously offered to send me a camera that he constructed. A few weeks later I received 3 cameras to capture the sun’s tracks through the sky in the Spring.

Pinhole cameras

In order to keep the cameras in-place for the 3-month duration of spring (March 20, 2010 to June 21, 2010), I constructed a simple rig to insert the cameras in place. This rig consisted of pieces of cedar purchased from the scrap wood bin at Home Depot, with holes drilled just deep enough to hold the film canister cameras in place. The rig was then mounted to the overhang of my roof using clamps.

Mounting apparatus

Below are the results of the 3-month long exposures. While the rig that was constructed held the cameras in-place for the duration of the exposure, the rig shows up in the photos. For future experiments, this rig needs to be modified so that it is not visible or minimally visible to the camera.